Rygar: Not too shabby...

[Anonymous]

Too bad the enemy variety IS rather weak as many reviews stated last year, plus with all those combos available there isn't all THAT much need to memorize or 'pick and choose' select combos based on situational context. Whereas in the DMC series you really have to pay attention to the patterns and weakness openings of your foes, following up with the proper countermeasure skill of your own based on a number of situational factors, Rygar just kind of lets you relax and kick some butt without the tension of failed chances getting in the way. Just hammer out a few different combinations and watch the fireworks show and the combo count rise. There is a sort of zen thing going on once you have enough enemies on screen to bust out numerical scores in the upper 60's. The zone calls...

But boy oh boy does it make up for the relative simplicity of the combat with some slick presentational values. The aural and video delights really create one slick package. There is a decent amount of platforming here, and some really creative environment scripting. Though I could stand to have more 'puzzles' in place of moving so many jars to open arbitrarily placed door barriers, I've been having some good fun overall. Bosses are rather impressive and the sheer size of some of these environs is quite a treat.

Glad I finally sat down to give it a chance.

[Dave Long]

I was surprised to see Rygar get fifth spot on Gameforms top games of 2002. Their list is actually right in line with some of my favorites too. Rez, Metroid Prime and Fusion, Animal Crossing... these are good picks.

http://www.gameforms.com/features/goty/2002/

I played the OPM demo of Rygar and it looked great and played well. I'll pick it up eventually. I've got so much stuff to play right now that I'll never get through it all. Last night I finally bought Onimusha (the first) for $10 used and got the $5 Moonbase Commander at EB.

--Dave

[Anonymous]

Animal Crossing shows up again eh? Seems everywhere I look these days I can't seem to escape the mention of this game. It must be damned spiffy for so many to fall so much in love with it. I'll have to try it out soon.

Rygar is shorter and easier than I thought though. Just as I was really getting into it and making serious progress, the finale was right around the corner. Finished the game this morning with only 4 hours and change on the savefile clock. Somewhat depressing as I wanted to see and do more than I got. :x

Hard mode (which unlocks upon successful completion) however has been a great change of pace. Enemies actually act as if they have some brains and some serious hatred towards Rygar this time around. Really ganging up on him with a desire to kill unlike the tame creatures they were in Normal mode. Bosses don't die off without me losing at least a life or two forcing the player to really sit down and watch their patterns and actually care about not being hit as they are quite a bit more deadly this time around. I don't think I really took much notice of many of their patterns on Normal mode, sometimes you really needn't bother much like sweeping away some of the common foes.

Plus, you can keep the materia stone things that you earned in Normal mode and keep updating your collection as you make more progress in Hard with brand new magic charms to buff your abilities. It's pretty neat, and I noticed there are a lot of subtle secrets scattered about I missed the first time through.

Fun little game.